As I am sure as many of you have noticed, until Bob Malme's three posts this past month (and mine from last night) the blog has been rather silent since January. And a few have wondered aloud or e-mail "What happened?" or "Where did Adam go?" Though I can't speak for the others, I can speak for myself.
It's been a busy few months from work to vacations and of course the Carolina Hurricanes made a run through the Stanley Cup playoffs. And of course - with the weather turning from winter to Spring - tailgate parties on weekend afternoons. So a lot of my time has been tied up in many other activities that I am involved in.
Of course, that's no different for anyone else, as hobbies and pursuits and commitments change year to year.
Now that I finally have a small break to catch my breath (it seems like yesterday was Christmas) I have had a chance to catch up on some blogging, and hopefully web updates. Right now I am just working through e-mails with corrections or additional details. I had started a WV update around the first of the year, and quite honestly, I forget where I left off on it.
However, there are changes coming up - and over the past five - six years I am sure many have noticed the updates have slowed down - as has my interest. It certainly has evolved, and I have been fairly busy on flickr taking photos from hikes, small towns, and of course hockey games. (A few have commented that I don't even take roadgeek photos anymore - and that's pretty much true.)
I'm going to be scaling down my end of gribblenation...some quickly some slowly. It will be less a signgeek and roads oriented site, but more on the features telling the story of places to see visit, and histories of highways and towns along the way. It's a transition, as some have noticed, that I started a number of years ago, and hope to continue to improve and grow at.
I also will most likely cut back on states, I have wondered aloud to some friends in the hobby - that there's so much in North Carolina that I feel the other states take away from my time doing it. I have a backlog that now goes back to 2005 for features from all over, and I'd like to catch up on it somehow.
So some of the sign galleries that I run at gribblenation.com will be moving. I've already discussed and agreed where Pennsylvania will go to Jeff Kitsko. I don't intend to delete anything (and won't) but more than likely I will not be updating the sign galleries - unless they are something specific like Virginia Cutouts, PA Keystones, or Florida Color US Shields.
Road meets, I just don't have the time or interest in having the large regional meets anymore. You can only see construction of I-485 in Charlotte so many times before it becomes stale. And putting them together on the scale that we have in North Carolina (15-20 attendees) can be exhaustive.
I will still go to them every now and then, and if someone wants to put one together in North Carolina again - great. But after now 10 years of putting them together or going to them, unless it is something out of the ordinary...I just have other and at times better things to do.
The blogs, I really enjoy, and I'll still be active with this blog and Carolina Crossroads. And who knows what else will come out of it. As long as NCDOT is NCDOT...something will always come up.
So what does this post mean, and I hope I didn't come out as a jerk or anything (though being perceived as one has kept some of the really intesne and over-enthused folks in the hobby away over the years.) It means that I just have moved on from my participation and interest in the hobby over time. What I am interested in is not the same as what most within the hobby have, and I want to persue the items I have grown a stronger interest in over the past few years.
So who knows what is next...but I'm looking forward to it. And I thank everyone for their interest and friendship over the past decade.
It's been a busy few months from work to vacations and of course the Carolina Hurricanes made a run through the Stanley Cup playoffs. And of course - with the weather turning from winter to Spring - tailgate parties on weekend afternoons. So a lot of my time has been tied up in many other activities that I am involved in.
Of course, that's no different for anyone else, as hobbies and pursuits and commitments change year to year.
Now that I finally have a small break to catch my breath (it seems like yesterday was Christmas) I have had a chance to catch up on some blogging, and hopefully web updates. Right now I am just working through e-mails with corrections or additional details. I had started a WV update around the first of the year, and quite honestly, I forget where I left off on it.
However, there are changes coming up - and over the past five - six years I am sure many have noticed the updates have slowed down - as has my interest. It certainly has evolved, and I have been fairly busy on flickr taking photos from hikes, small towns, and of course hockey games. (A few have commented that I don't even take roadgeek photos anymore - and that's pretty much true.)
I'm going to be scaling down my end of gribblenation...some quickly some slowly. It will be less a signgeek and roads oriented site, but more on the features telling the story of places to see visit, and histories of highways and towns along the way. It's a transition, as some have noticed, that I started a number of years ago, and hope to continue to improve and grow at.
I also will most likely cut back on states, I have wondered aloud to some friends in the hobby - that there's so much in North Carolina that I feel the other states take away from my time doing it. I have a backlog that now goes back to 2005 for features from all over, and I'd like to catch up on it somehow.
So some of the sign galleries that I run at gribblenation.com will be moving. I've already discussed and agreed where Pennsylvania will go to Jeff Kitsko. I don't intend to delete anything (and won't) but more than likely I will not be updating the sign galleries - unless they are something specific like Virginia Cutouts, PA Keystones, or Florida Color US Shields.
Road meets, I just don't have the time or interest in having the large regional meets anymore. You can only see construction of I-485 in Charlotte so many times before it becomes stale. And putting them together on the scale that we have in North Carolina (15-20 attendees) can be exhaustive.
I will still go to them every now and then, and if someone wants to put one together in North Carolina again - great. But after now 10 years of putting them together or going to them, unless it is something out of the ordinary...I just have other and at times better things to do.
The blogs, I really enjoy, and I'll still be active with this blog and Carolina Crossroads. And who knows what else will come out of it. As long as NCDOT is NCDOT...something will always come up.
So what does this post mean, and I hope I didn't come out as a jerk or anything (though being perceived as one has kept some of the really intesne and over-enthused folks in the hobby away over the years.) It means that I just have moved on from my participation and interest in the hobby over time. What I am interested in is not the same as what most within the hobby have, and I want to persue the items I have grown a stronger interest in over the past few years.
So who knows what is next...but I'm looking forward to it. And I thank everyone for their interest and friendship over the past decade.
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